Friend Request

People’s Petitions

Stop funding MGNREGA and create job options

Petitioning
The Government of India

Petition By:

The Petition

NREGA re-labeled as MGNREGA in 2009, is a job guarantee scheme presented on August 25, 2005 where the government provides job guarantee for at least 100 days to rural people. The aim behind introducing the MGNREGA was to provide expenditure income to the rural individuals by engaging them with mainly partial and unskilled perform.

The scheme stipulates that all payments must be paid within 15 days of the work being completed. In cases where delay happens, a beneficiary is entitled to compensation under MGNREGA guidelines.

However when we look at the surveys, we find that MGNREGA has not been effective in reducing poverty and lesser people are enthusiastic about being enrolled under the scheme. Over the years MGNREGA has only benefitted the already rich government officials.

Why people are not willing to enroll under the scheme?

1.People enrolled under the act are not able to get payment on time neither any compensation is being paid to them.

2.Those enrolled under the scheme have not been provided employment yet; even those provided employment under the scheme barely got 100 days of employment.

3.People under the scheme often have to pay bribes for the issuance of job cards and also suffer humiliation in the name of caste.

Why MGNREGA failed to succeed?

First of all MGNREGA is a demand driven system and if we believe the official data, only a few number of people were able to get job for complete 100 days under the scheme since there were no jobs created for the same . In addition to this the whole mechanism involving the functioning of MGNREGA is plagued with corruption on all levels, the poor complains of facing intimidation, paying bribes but not receiving payments on time and forget about the compensation as a penalty for late payment. Most of the funds directed under MGNREGA are misused in other purposes.

Adding up to this, gram sabhas have not been convened for years in many villages when the basic premise of MGNREGA is based on the consultation with the community through gram sabhas. A vicious cycle of corruption embroils all level starting from the Sarpanch, the panchayat secretary and the block CEO and finally the sub engineer.

The fund allocated to any State which depends on the number of estimated beneficiaries and the average annual expenditure under the MGNREGA is roughly Rs. 40,000 crore per year which is never utilized properly because of the poor infrastructure.

Is there an alternative to MGNREGA?

Since the mechanism underlying MGNREGA mainly depends on the availability of work; employment can only be offered when there is a scope & demand for work. Hence, instead of creating 100 days of paid employment or increasing it to 150, permanent job opportunities should be created. Creating more permanent jobs will help preventing migrations which in long term will benefit the economy of the country.

To,

The Government of India

Sir,

Observing that MGNREGA has so far only helped in increasing poverty the government should stop funding MGNREGA. Besides the high total annual expenditure the scheme has not helped the poor, there is no significant development in village roads and infrastructure or improvement in local job opportunities. Neither is the scheme helpful in checking large scale migration. On the other hand it has led to agriculture workforce deficit in peak harvest season. Instances of farmer’s suicide are also rising.

The fallout of MGNREGA seeks some new alternatives in its place. If the farmers are paid well they will not move to cities. Consequently the kind of manual work offered by MGNREGA does not offer skill upgradation. It has lost its appeal among the poor as they do not find it beneficial enough.